Cougars’ hands full with Tokay; Spartans traveling to Sacramento

As the Weston Ranch Cougars march into their second contest of the 2010 season, garnering the squad’s first win over the past six games will not come easy with the San Joaquin Athletic Association’s Tokay Tigers coming to battle the Cougars.

Unlike Weston Ranch, Tokay is coming off an impressive win over Bear Creek in which the Tigers’ quarterback Zac McCurdy racked up over 300 yards, including 196 on the ground and a pair of touchdowns through the air.

McCurdy is familiar with the Cougars, turning in a solid performance in last year’s 24-0 win over Weston Ranch at Tokay. Now the Tigers will make the drive as Weston Ranch tries to forgot a lackluster performance in its season-opening 34-7 loss to Calaveras.

Weston Ranch was unable to get anything going offensively posting their only points of the contest on the final drive. Defensively the Cougars had minimal success as well, giving up five touchdowns on the ground, four of which came in the first-half.

Cougar head coach Mike Hale is a Tokay High alum, and was part of the Cougars’ lower-level coaching staff along with Tokay head coach Louis Franklin three seasons ago. Both coaches will have added emotions, but neither will be focused on anything outside of winning the week-two matchup.

The Cougars will definitely need a quality showing from quarterback Antion Robinson. Robinson finally got his season in motion, maximizing his final drive against Calaveras by engineering Weston Ranch to its only points with a 35-yard touchdown strike.

Lathrop (0-1) will be on the field Saturday when they travel to Sacramento to take on McClatchy High. The Lions are coming off a season-opening loss like the Spartans, falling to Woodland 34-21 after going into halftime knotted at 8-8.

McClatchy is in the Metropolitan League, where they bang helmets with Grant, Burbank and Sacramento High. Lathrop struggled against a polished Escalon program, but was able to walk off the field and reflect on some positives after the shutout loss.

Lathrop, who could do nothing to stop Escalon running back Josh Miguel who had a field day on the Spartan defense, will now have to contend with a McClatchy passing attack that accumulated 275 yards through the air in the opener. McClatchy quarterback Nick Modar was 16-for-26 and tossed three touchdown passes. His primary target was senior wideout Shawn Smith who hauled in nine passes for over 100 yards.

The Weston Ranch-Tokay contest is scheduled for a 7:15 p.m. kickoff, while Lathrop-McClatchy is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.